Distie calls for unity in bid to stop price war

CD Imports, a distributor of CD-Rom software, has called for a central distribution centre in a bid to prevent a battle as vendors scramble to get on retailers? shelves.

Nick Tee, managing director of CD Imports, said the CD-Rom industry for jewel-cased software was an emerging market, but was in danger of being turned into a price battle as vendors fight to get shelf space.

He claimed the vendors would not have a future if they continued to pursue an aggressive price-slashing policy.

?The music industry makes us look like kids in the sand-pit,? Tee said.

He added that while the two industry leaders, HMV and Virgin, matched each other for price, this encouraged other retailers to enter into the pricing fray and drive the price down.

Tee called for the use of a central distributor so that retailers could go to one source for their product and publishers could concentrate on their core business of developing products. He claimed that he expected to be carrying 1,300 titles within a year.

Craig Johnson, managing director of rival outfit Focus Multi Media, conceded that pressure on the industry standard price of #9.99 would continue but was adamant that Focus Multi Media would not take the lead in the price-cutting war.

He said he had no intention of increasing the number of titles the company carries beyond 200.